Filipe FortesAnkur KothariJenn MatvyaAmanda Pyles 4.27.20

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Legality of Undergraduate MP3 usage

Questions of Interest

• What percentage of undergraduates use MP3s?– How many of those use them

illegally?

• Do undergraduates of different majors use MP3s differently?

• How does MP3 use affect CD purchases?

Legality of MP3s

• According the a Court of Appeals ruling, MP3 usage is only illegal if: – The original music owner copies their

copyrighted music to MP3 format and sells or gives copies away, or uses the MP3s for commercial purposes.

– Someone uses and/or distributes MP3s for which they do not own the original CDs.

Background and Design

• Target Population– CMU Undergraduates (4991)

• Sampled Population– Andrew UserIDs with Undergraduate

affiliation

• Frame– All UserIDs belonging to those with

Undergraduate affiliation

Background and Design (cont.)• Target Sample Size

– 180 (Margin of error ~7.2%)• Sampling Plan

– Simple Random Sampling• Mode of Administration

– Online Surveys. One initial email, plus two rounds of email follow-up and a phone follow-up (in progress)

Questionnaire Development• Questionnaire was administered to

15 friends for pilot testing• Some wording was ambiguous• Added “No Response” as an option

to all questions• Other slight technical modifications

Questionnaire

• Administered over the web• Results stored into a database

– Names stored separately– Data stored with no reference to

individual respondents– Users were not allowed to fill out the

survey multiple times, or without the correct passcode for their UserID

Project QuestionnaireThis survey is being conducted by Filipe Fortes, Ankur Kothari, Jenn Matvya, and Amanda Pyles as part of a required project for 36-203, Sampling, Surveys, and Society. All Responses will be kept strictly confidential. We will do everything in our power to keep your answers confidential. The data gathered is for statistical purposes only, no individual data will be published.If you choose not to participate in this survey, we will attempt contact you for a personal interview. If you object to participating in our survey, you may fill out our opt-out form where we merely ask you to indicate why you do not wish to participate, and will not contact you in the future.If you do choose to participate in our survey, we will remove your name from the list of people to contact personally. We ensure your confidentiality by storing your Response separately from your identification number, so that we have no way to correlate Responses to individuals.If you do not wish to answer to a question, please choose the "No Response" option.

Expected Returns

• Expected a final response rate of 50%– High opt-out rates because of

sensitive topic

• Expected low return rates for web-based survey

Survey Implementation

• First email sent out 8pm, 4.10.00– Received 79 responses (44%) within 36

hours– 5 opt-outs

• First email follow up sent out 12:30pm, 4.16.00– Received 22 responses (23%) within 24

hours– 5 additional opt-outs

Survey Implementation (cont.)• Second email follow up sent out

11:00pm, 4.20.00– Received 12 responses (17%)– 1 additional opt-out

• Preliminary Phone follow up– Received 9 responses (16%)– 3 additional opt-outs– Most respondents not home

Survey Implementation (cont.)

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120

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180

Initial First Email SecondEmail

PreliminaryPhone

Sent

Responded

Opt- out

Survey Implementation (cont.)• Current response rate

– 122 responded (67.8%)– 14 opt-outs (7.8%)– No contact from 44 (24.4%)

• Current Margin of Error: 8.8%

08764990

1804991

122

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)(...

Hypothesis and Expected Results• Most undergraduates that use

MP3s use them illegally• Males will be more likely to engage

in illegal behavior• People with MP3s will often not buy

those CDs• On-campus students will be more

likely to engage in illegal behavior

Illegal behavior index

• Wanted to measure how many illegal activities each respondent committed– Based on answers to seven of the

questions– Index ranged from 0 (no illegal

behavior) to 7 (illegal behavior on all counts)

Results and Statistical Analyses• Out of 122 sampled, 118 have

used MP3s– 82 of the 118 (69%) have used MP3s

illegally in some way (a non-zero score on the index)

• Males are more likely to engage in illegal behavior – p < .001; Male average index = 2.5

versus female average index = 1.2

Results and Statistical Analyses (cont.)• 42% reported not buying a CD

because they already had it on MP3– 59% reported buying a CD after

hearing it on MP3

• No statistical difference between index scores of on- and off-campus students

Results and Statistical Analyses (cont.)• Difference in index scores between

collegesCollege

Avg. Index

SIA 3.3

SCS 2.8

HSS 2.1

CIT 2.0

MCS 1

CFA .9

BHA .3

Heinz 0

Results and Statistical Analyses (cont.)• Those with portable MP3 players

have significantly higher index scores– p < .0001; P-MP3 owners average

index = 4.2 versus non-owners average index = 1.9

Results and Statistical Analyses (cont.)• Those who use Napster have a

higher average index than those who don’t– p < .0001; Napster users average

index = 2.9 versus non-users average index = 1.3

Conclusions/Limitations

• Many things need more extensive investigation– Specific effects MP3s have on CD

purchasing – Respondents knowledge of copyright

laws. – More quantitative measures

Interesting Feedback

• Reasons given for opting out– “I have had some bad experiences with

surveys that claim to be confidential…”– “I typically do not fill out electronic surveys.

sorry.”– “If u send me any more surveys i will kcuf u

over”– “No time”– “tasty corn”– “Too weird”